


London, Eh?

by tragicallycumbersome



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tragicallycumbersome/pseuds/tragicallycumbersome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock grow up in tandem in early twenty-first century London, Ontario.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eighth Grade

John shook his head to the side, trying to flip his bangs out of his eyes. He’d decided to grow out his hair that fall, after Levi had come back from the holidays with blonde streaks (from the sun, he’d told the girls) and a shaggy cut, but John personally never seemed to be able to keep it out of his eyes and was pretty close to just shaving it all off. 

When (like always), the bangs fell right back into place, John gave up and peered through them at the girl standing in front of him. She hadn’t said anything when she first walked up- which was a bit awkward, actually, leaving his mumbled “Hi” flopping alone in the frosty air- but she was looking at him earnestly, holding out an envelope in her mittened hands.

“Happy two month anniversary.” she told him.

“Happy two month anniversary to you, too!” he said back, successfully resisting the urge to study his shoes. 

A sudden clang from a semi-frozen soccer ball against a goalpost gave Clara the excuse to flick her eyes away from his face, and once they left they stayed there, focused on something apparently fascinating behind his left shoulder. “I got you something,” she said, and thrust the envelope further at John.

He took it, examining the thin white paper as well he could wearing his thick grey gloves. It was regulation size, long and narrow, with a plastic window in a corner that didn’t allow him to see its contents. His name was written carefully on the front in blue ballpoint- John Watson, she’d used his full name. He scrabbled at the opening of the envelope before sighing and pulling off one glove with his teeth. 

A few of Clara’s friends, sitting on wooden bleachers a few dozen metres away, giggled loudly, though whether it was a result of their anticipation or in response to Levi, pretending to kick the ball at the slender redhead in the front row, John couldn’t tell. He hoped they weren’t watching him. He hoped they weren’t watching Levi.

When John finally got the envelope open, he fished around before wedging a fingernail underneath a side that was apparently more crumpled than the other. Feeling it come loose, he withdrew his hand and pulled out a carefully flattened twenty dollar bill.

Clara’s face was painfully expectant.

“Wow. Thanks!” John said, gaining enthusiasm in the second word as he shook off a split second of disappointment. “This is so generous!”

His grandparents sent him money for Christmas sometimes, and he got gift cards all the time, but he felt a little uncomfortable taking money from another kid.

No, girlfriend. He had to start using the word- it had been two months already, after all. 

Clara still looked unsure. He guessed that she just hadn’t been able to figure out what to get him. Or maybe she couldn’t get her parents to drive her to the mall. Or maybe he was just being silly. Whichever it was, John was starting to feel bad about the insecurity written all over her face. It had to be his fault, and imagining how his Gran would react if she knew he was responding to a gift in a way that hurt someone’s feelings, he closed the distance between them and gave Clara a quick hug. Her body was jerky, and her arms momentarily trapped between John’s torso and hers until she pulled them out and patted his back, keeping everything but her palms free from contact. 

Next to so much twitching, John felt meaty. After the requisite three seconds (according to Irene, who was generally considered the expert in class 8S), they both let go and retreated to the distances they’d held before.

John looked down at the envelope still clutched in his hand, and after a beat he slipped the money back in, folded the envelope carefully and tucked it in the pocket of his coat. 

He started to pat his other pocket, and experienced a brief moment of panic when he couldn’t feel anything. 

“Uh, I got a present for you too,” he told Clara, buying time while his fingers scrabbled around the inside of his pocket. He felt his shoulders sink a little in relief when he finally grasped the tiny, beautifully wrapped box (care of his mother) and pulled it out, dropping it into Clara’s red woolen mittens. In contrast to John’s growing anxiety, with her major role in the gift-giving over, Clara looked visibly relaxed as she picked at the tape on the little box. 

“Is it jewelry?” she guessed. “A bracelet?”

John hedged. “Well, you’ll see in a second…”

Clara finished pulling off all the wrapping, and like John she placed it carefully in the pocket of her pink winter coat before opening the green corduroy box. 

“Wow, thanks!” she said a split second too early. Then she registered what she saw and John saw a shadow of even deeper awkwardness cross her face. “They’re so pretty!” she continued, hiding her disappointment with about the same extent of success as John had had. “I mean, I don’t have pierced ears, but that’s fine! I’ll just get a chain and wear them like a necklace.”  
John looked down at the pink enamel earrings lying in the green box and felt his face flush. He’d spent an afternoon at the mall with his mother picking them out, and had felt certain Clara would like them. Now the glossy twin hearts only looked small and sad.

“Oh… I’m sorry…” he stuttered. To be honest, he’d never even thought of checking on the state of her ears. Both his sister Harry and his mother had always worn earrings, so he’d sort of assumed that all girls did. “I can return them” he offered, hoping she’d say no since he didn’t relish the idea of a second mall trip.

Luckily, Clara seemed horrified at the idea, closing the box as carefully as she did everything else and shaking her head. “No, really, it’s ok. They’re great! Thank you so much, John.”

They shared a second uncomfortable hug.

When they separated, a silence grew between them (the same silence that John had been baffled and defeated by for the last two months). Clara’s eyes flicked to a faraway patch of red hair in the bleachers, and John’s followed suit to the group of adolescent boys shouting and pushing next to the girls. 

“Well,” Clara said, “bye then. Happy two month anniversary.”

John nodded his agreement, and they separated. Turning away, he broke into a run, breathing in the cold Canadian air (it was unseasonably frosty for March, even by London standards) and shaking off the brief encounter as rapidly as he’d been sucked into it. Over by the bleachers, the girls pressed Clara for details, and surrounded by attention she seemed to forget the grey reality and became bubbly and giggly with the rest of them, passing the earrings around for admiration.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the bell rang and marked the end of afternoon recess, Sherlock didn’t react. He’d worn his biggest coat in order to smuggle his laptop to the yard, and secluded under the bleachers (the ones unoccupied by the squealing girls several yards to his right) he’d been working steadily on his latest code. He’d only picked up the language last weekend, but he’d had enormous success so far in coding his new website and was feeling greatly encouraged. The progress he’d made in the last 72 hours had been remarkable, even by his standards, especially considering that he’d hadn’t really slept or eaten since he’d begun. His interface was really coming along- he’d always known that his fascinating studies just needed a way to reach the public, and very soon he was sure his tobacco ash analysis would become big news.

Sherlock was hunching even closer to his keyboard to work out a particularly tricky bug when he was forcibly interrupted by a wind-flushed face peering underneath the bleachers. “Hey man, aren’t you coming in?” asked the boy. “I don’t think your teacher knows you’re under here, but recess is over.”

Sherlock sighed and looked up from his computer. “Obviously,” he drawled. “I did hear the bell.”

The boy shrugged. “Well, OK then. See you.” He withdrew, and Sherlock watched him trot back to where the last of his class was shuffling through the double doors into the main hall of the school. It crossed his mind that Mummy wouldn’t appreciate the way he’d rebuffed the boy, but he didn’t feel guilty. Mike Stamford had gone to his school since kindergarten, though they’d never actually interacted before today, and Sherlock had known his type for years. He was a Helpful, one of the most boring categories Sherlock could possibly sort him into. Well-meaning but dull edged; nothing out of the ordinary. 

However, he had managed to break Sherlock’s concentration, so with another sigh Sherlock snapped his laptop shut and stood up, brushing snow from his coat. He unfolded the collar around his bony jaw and ducked out from under the bleachers, striding back to the school. He certainly didn’t feel like it, but his older brother Mycroft had started to track his attendance lately and had made certain threats which Sherlock wasn’t willing to test.

Class had started by the time Sherlock had tucked away his things in the cubbies and walked into the room. The teacher, a woman in her early forties wearing brogues and more than a few extra pounds, stopped writing and twenty seven pairs of pre-teen eyes turned to the doorway.

“Mr. Holmes,” pronounced Ms. Donovan. Sherlock stopped and focused on her, noting the vindictive twist to the premature lines around her mouth. 

“Ah,” he muttered to himself. So she had figured out who’d hacked into her database of (thoroughly unoriginal) lesson plans.

“Master Holmes, attending class?” she asked with exaggerated surprise. The jokers in the back snickered. “To what may we owe the pleasure? Or should we have this discussion later this afternoon- in detention?”

Sherlock’s eyes squinted as they flicked over the woman, and when they began to shine the snickering died out rapidly. “I’d be delighted, Ms. Donovan,” Sherlock began. Listening to the condescension in his own voice, he recognized the tone his older brother, Mycroft, used on the teenagers he called his friends (though Sherlock suspected “underlings” would in fact be the more accurate descriptor). “However, I believe my presence here would make you late for your date.“

Ms. Donovan paused, but before she could open her mouth to respond Sherlock’s brows furrowed and he continued. “Actually, scratch that. You don’t really think he’ll show up. You’re probably right, I’m afraid- if he’s missed two- no, three- dates in a row, he must be pulling away.” 

The woman’s jaw dropped even further, and Sherlock noted with interest that the lines in her face seemed to be deepening. Even from the far side of the room, Sally Donovan could see her mother’s face crumple, and when the boy sitting next to her let out a nervous giggle she elbowed his side as though it was Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock, however, noticed nothing but the whirring in his head, so much more fast-paced and thrilling than the sensation he got when writing code. “It might not be his choice, though. Possibly his wife finally caught on. You haven’t exactly been careful about your little affair.”

He seemed prepared to continue, but Ms. Donovan finally jumped to action and cut over him. “That’s enough!” she said too loudly. “The principal’s office! Now!”

Sherlock looked confused, but turned to go. As he left, Sally tore out of her seat and squeezed through the door ahead of him, shoving him roughly into the doorframe before rushing towards the girls’ bathroom. The room was silent behind them except for Ms. Donovan’s stammering, but Sherlock was no longer listening. 

“Deductions!” he said aloud wonderingly. “So much cleaner than coding… No programs or languages… just logic. Like a razor.” 

His pace sped up until he was gliding more than walking, and the three dejected fifth-graders slumped on the bench outside the principal’s office would later swear they heard Sherlock Holmes humming to himself.

When the bell rang for the end of the day, the rest of class 8D clustered around Sherlock’s cubby and waited for him. He was muttering rapid-fire comments about his surroundings, but they petered off when he saw the entire class watching him, wide-eyed. “Can I help you?” he asked, more pleasantly than usual. He’d never really gotten along with his peers- he found them dreadfully boring at the best of times, and he’d been the target of some surprisingly foul language over the years when he’d offended one or the other in some ridiculous way- but he had no objection to the fawning he expected was about to come.

Sherlock was not disappointed. 

“Is Ms. Donovan really having an affair with a married man?”

“Is her boyfriend really going to break up with her?”

“How did you know?”

“How did you figure it all out?”

“Did you break into her email?”

“How did you do it?”

With these last, the questions disintegrated into a sort of awed white noise until Sherlock, chin high and a smug smile tugging at his lips, began to speak. The hall hushed.

“It was obvious,” he said. “Her legs gave it away, really. Have any of you paid even the slightest attention to your surroundings today?" There was silence. “Anyone?”

The excitement of the crowd paled a little as they registered his condescension, but their eagerness for an explanation outweighed the offense, and they remained waiting for his answer as Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“Her skirt showed a good 18 inches of skin. Smooth skin. She shaved her legs! This is a woman who once went twelve days without washing her hair.” The class groaned in appreciation. Sally glowered from across the room. Sherlock ignored it all. “Clearly, only a special occasion warrants this level of personal upkeep for our Ms. Donovan. She’s been divorced for years, and given the lack of major social events in the life of an elementary school teacher and the rather intimate nature of the clue, a date seemed likely. Add to that the perfume I could smell even from several metres away-Claire-de-Lune, I believe- and the conclusion was obvious.”

Turning to a small girl standing to his left, he said “Why don’t you run into the classroom and peek into the duffle bag next to Ms. Donovan’s desk?” The girl obliged, so excited to be involved that she forgot every lecture her mother had given her about respecting privacy. After she’d run off Sherlock turned back to his audience. “You all missed the glaringly obvious legs, but surely at least one of you must have realized the significance of the duffle bag.”

Silence again.

“None of you? Truly? Goodness, what it must be like in your empty little heads.”

The class grumbled. If his language didn’t make it clear enough that Sherlock thought they were imbeciles, his arched eyebrow and the sarcasm seeping from his voice made it abundantly so.

8D and 8S shared a hallway, and while Sherlock’s classmates were all lingering by the cubbies, most of 8S was slowly filtering out through the double doors and towards where the afternoon buses were arriving. The exception was the boys’ rugby team, and as Sherlock continued to lecture, a small group of boys in rugby shorts and muddy shoes trooped past him in the direction of the yard. 

Sherlock, temporarily distracted by the smell of sweat and the sound of chuckling, glanced over. It was a group of three, and while two were laughing quietly to each other, the third had a strange expression on his face. Sherlock scanned the third, noting his sheepdog hair, and quickly identified him as John Watson. Another Helpful, just like Mike, though presumably somewhat brighter since he had come second in his year last June (after Sherlock, of course). Regardless- completely beneath Sherlock’s notice.

Despite this glaringly obvious fact, John seemed to think he had something relevant to say, and veered away from his buddies to lean into Sherlock.

“Hey, you might want to be careful. That big guy in the back there looks pretty mad.”

Sherlock looked outraged, and pointed imperiously for him to go. “I don’t need the help of a rugby player,” he said venomously. He looked as though he were about to continue, but John shrugged and left before he had the chance, and Sherlock was left sputtering while his audience looked on with interest at the aftermath of the exchange they hadn’t quite been able to hear.

John felt unsettled. He knew Anderson from summer camp, and judging by the boy’s expression he’d quickly realized that Sherlock’s attitude was pushing exactly the right buttons to set the guy off- the combination of an easily bruised ego and a crush on Ms. Donovan’s daughter could only add up to a beating after school. John may have had a history of playing rather violent sports, but he compartmentalized that part of himself, and the idea of fists hitting the lanky genius from 8D just seemed wrong.

John knew that his advice likely hadn’t done a thing, but as he rejoined his friends and walked out into the slushy yard he glanced back at the hallway to see Sherlock pulling irritably at his white cable-knit jumper and looking lost for words- a rare condition.

The doors slammed shut and Sherlock was left in front of the crowd. It had thinned slightly since he’d sent off the girl to check on the duffle bag, and it occurred to him that the panache of his presentation might be lost on eighth graders. In the back of his mind, he knew that Mycroft would call this grandstanding, but he was enjoying himself despite the bored air he was doing his best to project. He’d never had much of an audience before (while his tobacco ash website was exquisitely made, it generated a mysteriously small amount of traffic) and the novelty was gratifying. 

It was funny, really. Writing code had been his obsession for months, and even this morning he could have told anyone he was going to work with computers his entire life. In the seventh grade, he could remember feeling the same way about math- and in the fourth grade, about maps. But none of those pastimes had ever really concerned other people, or had put him in any kind of danger, in the way that these deductions did. Sherlock felt alive. Everything around him seemed clear and sharp and true. He wondered if he should become some kind of detective. He wondered if this was what being high felt like.

However, he found himself slightly distracted after his encounter with the rugby player, so he carried on with slightly less flair than before. “Anyway, as that girl will confirm, the duffle bag contains Ms. Donovan’s change of clothes for this evening. Tights, shoes, a dress… that sort of thing. Clearly, if she brought them to school, she’s meeting her date immediately after class ends, before she has time to go home- hence my deduction that she wouldn’t really keep me for detention.

While the class mulled it over, Sally strode over to Sherlock and pointed at his chest. “My mom has the right to go on a date, you obnoxious jerk. Anyway, she is not dating a married man! So you’re wrong.”

Sherlock pushed her finger away from his body with an irritated expression. “I’m afraid you’re incorrect, my dear,” he told Sally. “Her boyfriend does have a wife. Of at least a decade.”

“So who is he?” piped up a voice from the back. Sally looked stricken, and Sherlock noted with some interest that she most likely already knew. Perhaps she too had recognized the ugly Snoopy mug her mother was drinking out of (quite impressive, if she had; the girl might make a half-decent assistant detective someday). Sherlock himself remembered the mug from the sixth grade. Sherlock had sat directly in the front of the room that year, and had eyed the tacky cartoon dog on Mr. Davis’ desk every morning from September to June. 

“Oh!” Sherlock muttered suddenly. 

He’d been wrong! Ms. Donovan didn’t have a date right after school- if she’d gotten Davis’ mug this morning, the clothes in the duffel bag must be from yesterday. Sherlock wondered faintly how long Davis’ wife was away. And what excuse Ms. Donovan had used when she’d dropped Sally off at her grandparents’ house last night. 

This meant he’d been wrong about her boyfriend losing interest, too. The unkempt state of her hair was the result of a rushed morning, not a lack of motivation rising from her doubt in him.

It was at the precise moment Sherlock came to this realization that the small girl he’d sent to check on Ms. Donovan’s duffel bag returned, bursting with excitement and importance.

“She’s got…“ the girl managed to get out before Sherlock shushed her with a slightly panicky wave of his hand.

“Not relevant,” he told her. “You were too slow. The point’s been made.” She looked confused but abashed.

“Anyway, my most interesting deduction, and the part you’re all rabid to hear, is of course the identity of Ms. Donovan’s little secret.” 

A redheaded girl giggled. Sally flicked her gaze over to Anderson, who was glowering.

Sherlock followed her gaze and paused again in his explanation. He was suddenly reminded of the look of worry on the rugby player’s face when he’d warned about setting off his classmates. Sherlock didn’t normally think much about how others would react to his own actions, but a faint prickle at the back of his neck told him that there might be unpleasant consequences to this particular action. Apparently detective work came with some interesting side effects.

Actually, he’d been intending to reveal everything, but now that he thought about it, there might be certain advantages to keeping a few details to himself. For later use, of course. His decision had nothing to do with personal safety-that would be inexcusably mundane.

“And you won’t learn it from me,” Sherlock finished awkwardly. “I have better things to do than explain the obvious to children.”

Anderson looked murderous, and the look was echoed in the faces of several around him. Sherlock grabbed his empty bag from his cubby and stalked off without allowing time for discussion or protests. 

Later, behind the school, as Levi held Sherlock’s arms behind his back to allow Anderson a clearer expanse of bony Holmes to punch, Sherlock had the opportunity to ponder the failings of diplomacy. He supposed John Watson’s advice had been sound, but really, trying to spare the pedestrian feelings of a group of eighth graders was more difficult than building the perpetual motion machine he had half-finished in the garage- and far more futile. He’d need a full-time aide by his side to even be bothered.

Bus 677 started to pull out of the driveway, and with a yelp Levi dropped Sherlock’s arms and dashed off. Anderson followed suit. Sherlock dabbed at the blood streaming from his nose onto his white knitted jumper, but quickly gave up. He’d only worn it because it was a gift from a distant relative and Mummy had forced him, anyway. With an exasperated sigh, he pulled it over his head and chucked it.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After rugby practice, John was walking to the bus stop when he saw a mostly-white bundle lying crumpled by the dumpster. “Slobs,” he muttered to himself. It was funny, though. He’d seen that particular shade of cream somewhere recently. 

The image of a slender boy a head taller than the rest of his classmates, wearing an unruly mop of curly black hair and a thick jumper that wrapped neatly around his ribs and narrow waist, stayed with John the rest of the day. That night he tagged along when his mother went for groceries, and on the way home they stopped at the mall. John bought four cable-knit sweaters.


	2. Ninth Grade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John grow up in tandem in twenty-first century London, Ontario.

One year, two months and thirteen days passed before John and Sherlock interacted again. In that time, Sherlock grew three inches and John didn’t grow at all. John joined the Cadets and broke up with Clara, though she befriended his sister Harry shortly after and spent most of the summer at his house. Sherlock never finished coding the interface for his tobacco ash analysis, which was fine because it never got any hits anyway. He bulked up a little, the result of running about town solving three local crimes for which his older brother Mycroft took credit.

John and Sherlock lived in the same district, though only Sherlock lived in the wealthy part, so they were both assigned to attend Baker High in September. It was surprising that they didn’t share a single class throughout all of ninth grade, especially since they both took mostly science courses.

John played football in the fall (second string) and wrestling in the winter (western Ontario champion). In February, he walked in on Harry and Clara partially undressed in his sister’s room.

Sherlock’s life was mostly a blur of boredom punctuated by brief bursts of activity until June, when the teacher of his French course (a mandatory class in which Sherlock both slacked off and excelled) set up an intranet to post assignments for all her classes. In actual fact, she’d had the program up since the start of the semester, but Sherlock only bothered to look at it when she posted the review for the final exam.

The intranet was called Axis, and Sherlock was surprised to find himself mildly interested when he logged in for the first time. He’d always dismissed Ms. Baptiste as the average, computer-illiterate thirty-something, but the program was quite complex. Of course she hadn’t designed it herself, but he found no trace of it anywhere else on the web. In fact, its spartan design seemed more appropriate for a government agency or the military than for a high school. She must have connections somewhere, Sherlock thought idly. Worth looking into sometime.

He had just made an account in his standard style, using a 16-digit username of random letters and numbers which this time turned out to be m1k3s7886u9jk005, and was browsing the program for the exam review when he heard a quiet bleep from his laptop. Sherlock was curled against a bookshelf in the school library at the time, skipping English (a bore), and at the noise he flicked up his head to scan the room for any angry librarians alerted by the noise. When he was satisfied that no one had heard the beep, he muted his laptop and looked for the source.

A small green dot was flashing in the bottom right hand corner of his screen. Apparently, someone named BakerBruin15 was trying to send him a message. Sherlock rolled his eyes. He’d given Ms. Baptiste too much credit- the Axis chat interface was exactly like Facebook’s. Or even the MSN Instant Messenger service all his classmates had used back in the fifth grade.

However, despite its unoriginality, he couldn’t resist using opening the message. After all, Axis was an intranet, which meant that whoever was trying to contact him had to be a student in one of Ms. Baptiste’s three classes. BakerBruin15 was apparently a very close friend, if Sherlock was judging based on the number of exclamation marks employed in his greeting.

**BakerBruin15: Mikey! Bro! You finally got on this thing, eh?**

Sherlock glanced back at his username- m1k3s7886u9jk005- and cracked a weak smile. He supposed that to someone used to the horribly garbled version of the English language generally used in forums like this one, the first few letters of his screen name might actually bear a resemblance to a first name. “Mikey’s”, apparently. He told himself he was amused at the misunderstanding. Disappointment would be ludicrous. Completely unjustified.

Curiosity narrowing his eyes, Sherlock clicked off Axis to check his file of class lists at Baker High (the story of how he’d gotten hold of it was best kept between the afternoon secretary, her mistress, and himself). Ms. Baptiste taught three classes, and had fifth period free, as well as third for lunch. All French courses this semester, apparently.

There were three Michaels in her first period class, none in the second-period class Sherlock was taking, and one in her fourth period class. Sherlock was doing some quick math to confirm that this was an annoyingly high percentage composition of Michaels when he was interrupted by another beep.

**BakerBruin15: Took you long enough- the semester’s practically over.**

Apparently his mystery correspondent took French during the same period as “Mikey”, narrowing the field down to… 42 students. Actually, 41- Mikey was hardly messaging himself.

**BakerBruin15: Mom cracked down and said you actually had to study this year, I bet.**

Someone was persistent. Looking back at the screen name as it blinked, Sherlock smiled again (more convincingly, this time). He wasn’t quite sure why he’d bothered trying to find out BakerBruin15’s identity in the first place, but it was laughably obvious now. The screen name was a sports reference-Baker High’s mascot was the Bruin, and the person was behind the screen was #15 on one of Baker’s sports teams. Statistically, probably a male team. All that was left to do was to obtain a list of the members of Baker’s junior boys’ sports teams, and cross reference any #15s against Ms. Baptiste’s first and fourth period classes.

**BakerBruin15: Hudson said the exam’s gonna be a brutal one.**

Sherlock frowned. While he did rather look forward to the expression the office secretary would make if he showed up demanding a second round of semi-confidential information, he’d forgotten why he was pursuing this deduction at all. The solution wouldn’t be useful at all. Sherlock was indecisive until BakerBruin15 sent yet another message.

**BakerBruin15: :P**

Sherlock snapped his laptop closed. Every time he saw an emoticon he heard Mycroft’s condescending voice lecturing, “Pure sentiment, without even the dignity of intelligent verbalization. The trademark of an imbecile.” Sherlock had only used the symbols once-and he’d been nine, for God’s sake- but the experience had been enough to make the seemingly-innocuous smileys repel him to that day.

Somewhat ironically, if Sherlock had been asked at that moment to explain his intensifying disappointment, he wouldn’t have been able to. It might have had something to do with the aborted possibility of a real peer. It might have been reluctance to return to the self-induced isolation that had marked his entire high school career. Sherlock chalked it up to the unspent adrenaline of an aborted deduction.

Regardless, he stuck to his decision not to pursue the investigation. He continued to stick to it through the rest of first period, through second period French, and through lunch, biology, and math. He stuck to it while he packed his backpack at the end of the day, and he stuck to it when Jim Something offered him “top quality shit” for the eighteenth time behind the Tim Hortons next to the school. He even stuck to it while he hunched in the gardener’s toolshed and got high for the first time surrounded by dust and rakes and silence.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About an hour after Sherlock left the Tims, John arrived. He’d have been there earlier- since Baker High’s junior boys’ rugby season had ended depressingly early, he usually didn’t have anything to do right after school- but a team in the semi-final lineup had dropped out and Baker had had one more chance to make it to the finals. They’d lost to Yard High, though, so the season really was over.

By 4:30, coated in sweat, John and the team trudged into the Tims. The boys were restless, and when the middle-aged woman working the cash picked up on the tension, she sent them an unfriendly look.

Levi picked up on the glance and said loudly, “The older they get, the more we scare ‘em, eh boys?” Anderson chuckled like a gorilla and John looked uncomfortable.

“Let’s sit down,” John suggested before heading towards a row of tables lining the window. A few of his teammates followed him, but stopped when Levi did not.

“I’m getting a drink first,” he said. “It’s fucking hot out.”

An elderly couple reading the Coffee News winced, and a thin boy John recognized but couldn’t place looked up with interest.

Most of the team agreed, and made a scraggly line by the cash.

“Iced coffee,” Levi ordered, plunking a loonie on the counter. While he waited, he turned and yelled to John, who was sitting alone at the table. “Bro! You’re not getting anything?”

“I came for the air conditioning, not the caffeine,” John called across the room. In truth, he came here almost every day, and spending money each time would add up to much more than he cared to think about. He’d started working part-time in his dad’s pub that September but wages weren’t exactly part of the equation.

Levi shrugged, grabbed his drink and sauntered back to the table. The other rugby boys bought mostly the same thing, and soon their side of the Tims was packed and noisy.

The elderly couple put back the Coffee News and left. The thin boy adjusted his headphones.

“Yard’s team was stacked with Grade 10s,” a blonde rugby player with a deep tan was saying. “Coaches are supposed to put in a mix.”

“Don’t be stupid, Chris, of course if they had the numbers they’d put in the older ones. The problem’s that Yard High has double our population. I’d bet so many guys tried out for the team that they could afford to cut anyone under 160 pounds,” said Tom, a British exchange student who didn’t look like he weighed much over 140 himself.

“You’d be out to lunch, then, wouldn’t you, Johnny boy,” Levi chuckled, elbowing John in the ribs a little harder than necessary.

John jumped. Without a coffee to focus on, he’d been distracted by a sweaty curl sticking straight up from Tom’s mop of dark hair, and hadn’t been following the conversation.

“Sorry, what?” he asked, turning to Levi.

Levi looked put out. “Something on your mind?”

“No, no. Just, uh… we all smell pretty bad. Probably should have used the school showers before coming out in public.” John gestured in the direction he’d been looking, flushing a bit at being caught staring. He’d really just been… zoned out, that was all.

“Tom?” said Levi with a laugh, following the flip of John’s hand. “Don’t know why you’d be sweating, Thomas, since you barely made it off the bench the whole game.”

John flushed deeper- he hadn’t meant to point at anyone specific. Least of all Tom.

“No, I wasn’t, uh, looking at Tom because he stinks… We’re all just, sweaty, and… his hair…”

Levi’s face creased into a strange grin. “Oh, of course. You weren’t distracted by his sweat. It was his luscious locks all on their own.” Levi flipped his head back affectedly, running a hand through his blonde streaks.

John still had the same long bangs that he’d grown out in Grade 8, but he suddenly had the urge to buzz them off. “You’re one to talk, Bieber,” John said, an edge to his voice. He didn’t usually do conflict off the field (or pitch, or ring) but Levi was pushing him.

Unfortunately, Levi took the Bieber crack as a gay joke instead of the hair insult John had intended, and the grin fell off his face. “What are you trying to say, Watson?”

John couldn’t back down now. “I think you know what I’m saying.”

Levi tensed. “Unlike your sister, I’m no fa-”.

John felt his knuckles against Levi’s teeth before he really registered the decision to punch him. “Don’t you use that word,” he growled as the other boys slid out of the way to allow Levi and him to fall grappling to the floor. Some distant, sane part of John’s brain registered how ridiculous it was that they were really fighting about being gay. John was no homophobe, and this was the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. In Canada!

“I’ll say what I want!” Levi grunted back, kneeing John in the groin and flipping him over on the white linoleum. “Don’t push me, Watson.” His fist came down and John felt something crunch in his nose.

“Get off him!” shouted the thin boy with the headphones who had been sitting near the rugby tables. He had pushed his laptop aside and slid to the edges of the fight before anyone had really noticed. A few of the rugby players looked abashed and Tom stepped in to peel Levi off John before Headphone Boy could get himself seriously injured. Anderson looked venomous and moved to keep Tom out of it, but the rest of the team jumped to action and the fight was over as quickly as it had begun.

John’s chest was heaving and all the adrenaline pumping through his body numbed the pain in his nose and jaw to a faint ache. Objectively he knew his next stop should probably be the ER to check out his nose, but at that moment he felt great and it scared him. Even a quality tackle never made him feel that alive. The slight give of muscle and flesh under his fists- the sharp breaths and little exhales- the anger and fear and heat and imminence of every thought translating to action without conscious decision or doubt- it was a high like he’d never experienced.

John’s vision was still narrow and focussed entirely on Levi as the larger boy picked himself up and walked closer, his swagger lessened but still visible. The team moved closer in anticipation, Tom’s arms rising up to keep them apart.

At that moment the woman at the cash, who had disappeared as soon as the fight had begun, returned with a brawny man in his mid-fifties wearing a white apron. “Get out! All of you!” she shrieked. “I’m calling the police!”

The man was already advancing looking grim, but “police” was the magic word. The boys scattered.

Unfortunately, a single doorway was never designed to fit an entire, panicky rugby team all at once, and they produced something of a backlog as they squeezed to get out of the Tim Hortons. The man in the apron seemed intent on keeping them there for the police, and he already had a fistful of Anderson’s jersey when Headphone Boy tapped John’s shoulder and shouted, “Employee exit!” over the din. Apron Man saw the two boys dart away to the other side of the restaurant, but seemed to figure his best bet was the squirming mob in front of him, and didn’t react.

Even once Headphone Boy and John burst out into the sun and humid heat of the back parking lot, they waited until they were safely in the park next door before they bent over and caught their breath. John had been laughing hysterically since they left the Tims, and finally close enough to hear, Headphone Boy glanced over and joined in.

Hands on his knees, John huffed, “They… got…. Anderson! The look on that guy’s face…. His mother… The chef!” He trailed off in a series of dying giggles until he finally regained some control and straightened. “Hey, dude, thanks for what you did. I can’t imagine what would’ve gone down if I got caught back there.”

Headphone Boy gave him a goofy grin and ducked his head. “No problem, John.” John started a bit when he heard his own name, and realized that he really shouldn’t be calling the guy Headphone Boy. Though he was still wearing them around his neck, and clutching the laptop under one arm, which was pretty impressive actually, given their hurried escape.

“So, I’m sorry, I don’t think… uh… do we know each other? Your name’s escaping me a bit at the moment,” said John, feeling a little bad since the boy knew his name.

Headphone Boy didn’t look surprised or offended. “We had geography together last semester,” he offered. “It’s OK that you don’t remember me. I sat in the back.” Now that he thought about it, John could almost remember a little dark presence in the back corner of the geography room, perpetually hooked up to his laptop. “The name’s Jim.”

They shook hands, an awkward habit of John’s.

“So where do you live? I’ll walk you home,” offered Jim.

John waved a hand. “You don’t need to do that. We probably don’t live close.”

“Yeah, but where? You might be surprised.”

John was cornered. It was usually easy to avoid telling friends where he lived. People didn’t care all that much (something Harry reminded him of regularly) and putting them off was just a matter of evasion. Jim, though, was pushing.

“The Downs,” he said, daring the smaller boy to react with anything related to pity.

He didn’t. “Really?” asked Jim incredulously. “Same here! I usually try not to tell people.”

John relaxed. The Greenfield Downs were the scuzziest part of London. Far from Western University or the suburbs, it mostly housed a string of dive bars, Laundromats that opened and closed only at night, and ancient apartments filled with too many children. Objectively, John had always guessed that he wasn’t the only Baker student from the Downs, but he’d always opted to walk the two kilometres to school rather than mark himself by using the Downs bus stop, so he didn’t really know.

“Which part are you in?” John asked. “We’re probably neighbours.”

Jim paused almost imperceptibly before answering. “I’m the dead end.”

John had started walking and was slightly ahead of Jim, but he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. It was a strange way to respond, considering that the entire Downs was a dead end (“fitting”, Harry had once said bitterly), but he supposed Jim had a right to some privacy, even if he had been the one to push John in the first place. Probably he lived in the worst part of the Downs, by the strip club or something.

“Well, the next city bus won’t be by for the better part of an hour, so we might as well walk together,” John concluded, dismissing his speculation. The details of Jim’s life were none of John’s business.

The walk from Tim Hortons to the Downs was about a kilometre and a half, giving John and Jim a good twenty minutes of conversation to fill. John had forgotten all about his nose until they’d walked right past the hospital, at which point the adrenaline finally wore off and he was reminded with a sharp sting. However, this wasn’t his first rodeo, and when compared to past injuries he was pretty sure nothing was broken (though he was almost definitely going to have a lovely pair of black eyes in the morning). Anyway, he had a six o’clock shift at the pub tonight, and while the clients wouldn’t mind or notice a bit of blood, a trip to the ER would make him very late, a fact to which his dad would most definitely object.

“So what classes are you taking?” Jim was saying.

John tried very hard to focus. Tuning out of two conversations in less than an hour was just ridiculous.

John rattled them off. “First period French, second period bio, fourth period gym and fifth period math. You?”

Jim ignored the question. “French, eh? Baptiste or Levesque?”

“Baptiste. She’s alright. Dead boring, but I guess that’s what you’ve got to expect. I’m just glad we only need one French credit to graduate.”

“I had her last semester, but we had loads of substitutes when she missed all of November. I mean, it was great that she got engaged and all, but it’s not a great excuse to skip a full month of school. I don’t know how she swung it.” Jim rolled his eyes and looked affable. “Wish she’d let me in on the secret.”

John was surprised. He supposed Ms. Baptiste could conceivably have been wearing a ring all year, but he hadn’t noticed.

“She’s engaged? Who to?”

Jim winced at the grammar but passed it off by batting at an invisible mosquito. “The guy who runs the Laundry City franchise, actually. You ever seen those? There’s like four all over London. One’s even in the Downs. Peter Hudson, I’m pretty sure.”

John was impressed. “How in hell do you know that?”

“Oh, she told us,” Jim shrugged. That didn’t sound like the Ms. Baptiste John knew. She’d never told his class a thing. Actually, come to think of it, she might have told them in French, which would explain John’s complete lack of knowledge on the subject.

“Wait, so she’s marrying the dude who runs Laundry City? Is that the tall skinhead?” John had seen him slouching around behind the laundromat on several occasions.

“No, Hudson’s huge. Arms like logs, big beard. What looks an awful lot like a prison tattoo on his neck. Big tacky mermaid. He looks like your typical thug.”

John tried to reconcile this image with dainty Ms. Baptiste. “She showed you guys a picture?”

“Something like that.”

“Wow. This is crazy- I will never see that woman the same again.”

Jim laughed. “Being around me can do that to a person. Hey, so I heard Yard High kicked your arses today. Is that really the end of the rugby season?”

“Yeah, that’s it for us. Unless another team drops out of the finals, but even then, we’re not that high in the rankings so Yard would have to beat out Champlain High and then MacDonald too...”

John was surprised that the tiny boy was interested in rugby, but he seemed to listen raptly as John narrated the events of the game and the possibilities of the finals all the way to his own front door.

“… and anyway, this is me,” John finished. “You said you live around here?”

Jim nodded and looked down the road to where the Downs curled around a corner. “Yep, I’m close. Anyway, it was good meeting you, John Watson.”

“Same to you, Jim… Actually, I never got your last name.”

“It’s Moriarty. James Moriarty, at your service.” He made an elaborate bow, almost touching his toes.

John had to laugh. The little guy had attitude. “Well, see ya later, Jim Moriarty.” John climbed his steps and bent to pull a key from under a cinderblock. He pushed it into the keyhole, but the door swung open before he could even try to unlock it. Apparently someone was home. He returned the key, noticing that Jim was still standing at the base of the steps. Two wrinkles formed in John’s forehead and he wondered briefly if he should have waited before making it so blatantly obvious where his family kept the key to the front door.

“Bye!” he called a second time, waving politely but hoping to let the boy know that he could go.

John then turned his back and opened the peeling wooden door. He pulled off his dusty rugby spikes and held them both in one hand, closing the door with the other. Before he went further into the house, he peered out the small screened panel behind him and confirmed that Jim had gone. Actually, the whole street was empty. It had only been a few seconds- the boy must have hustled pretty quickly to get out of sight.

Turning, John forgot all about the exchange as he tried to figure out the best way to get up to the bathroom without being seen. He knew the fight would be written all over his face, and since his dad worked the pub until John took over at 6:00, if anyone was home it was bound to be his mum. And that meant she was missing another evening shift at the salon. And that meant that something had gone wrong.

John was creeping around the kitchen when Harry saw him. “John! What happened to your face?” she said loudly.

Damn- he’d thought Harry was going to be at Clara’s. Apparently no one in this house was capable of doing what they’d said they’d do. “I thought you weren’t coming home tonight,” John hissed, holding a finger over his lips to quiet her.

“Nope. Clara said she needed “space”.”

John suddenly noticed that Harry’s long red hair was caught in an enormous rat’s next at the back of her head. Normally fastidious, she only let that happen when she’d been drinking.

“For God’s sake, Harry, it’s-” John checked his watch “-5:17 on a Tuesday! How can you be drinking already?” He’d forgotten all about being quiet.

Harry chuckled. “That’s about what Clara said.”

“It’s not a joke!” he said, even louder this time.

Apparently, loud enough to wake up his mother, who fell off the couch behind John. “Serious business,” she slurred.

John whirled and his shoulders sagged. “Mum, why aren’t you at the salon?” It was really more of a shout now.

Harry was a sarcastic drunk. “Yeah, that’s a real mystery, isn’t it? Someone got themself fired again.”

“Johnny, it wasn’t my fault this time,” his mum whined. “How could… how could they… expect…” She trailed off.

John suddenly felt stifled. He kicked a bottle against the wall, where it shattered, and stomped out of the living room. Faintly he heard Harry remark in a singsong, “Oops, someone’s maaaaaad.”

His house was so hot. He shed his jacket and jersey on the linoleum tile of the kitchen, leaving the crumpled #15 to soak up the sticky brown liquid puddling by the fridge before running to the stairwell and taking the uneven wooden steps two at a time.

When he reached the second floor, he locked himself in the bathroom. The noisy fan offered the only moving air to be found in the house, and the cool tile of the shower against his bare skin calmed him down as he sat on the floor, breathing in and out.

He shouldn’t even have allowed his family to upset him. It wasn’t as though this salon was the first job his mum would drink her way out of, or the last.

John supposed it was mostly his sister who had him worked up. She’d been mostly fine until that summer. People had said that she and John were a lot alike- both academic, sensible, sturdy types- but personally John had always known that Harry was the smart one. He might have been diligent, working his way through problems and testing solutions until he found the right one, but she was sharp.

That had changed when he’d brought Clara home. He wasn’t sure exactly what to call the relationship between the two girls, but whatever it was, it had muddled his sister. She’d lost her cutting edge. Then, because Harry had never respected the rest of her peers enough to bother lying to them, word spread and she’d lost the invisible protection of her classmates’ envy and fear. And apparently the alcoholism gene was just lying dormant in Watson blood because that was when Harry started drinking, and didn’t stop.

When John rose from the tile floor and looked in the (dirty) mirror, all he could see was Harry’s long tangled hair wrapped around his own face. They looked so much alike, the Watson kids.

Looking closer, past the dried blood crusting underneath his nose and the already swelling flesh over his eye sockets, John could see Levi, too. He remembered the years spent growing up together, and the words flung at the Tim Hortons echoed in the small room.

John grunted and bent to rifle through the bathroom cabinets until he found an old pair of scissors. They were rusty, and the blue plastic handle had chipped so that the metal shaft peeked through in more than one place, but John took a sort of satisfaction in their inadequacy. It seemed appropriate.

Gripping a hank of his long blonde bangs in his left hand, John hacked them off. He continued to hack in large chunks, cutting irregularly and angrily until Levi and Harry faded from his reflection.

He didn’t notice that he was muttering quietly and becoming more and more careless until he accidentally nicked his ear with the blades.

“Fuck!” he snapped, jolting himself out of the daze he’d been in.

John carefully put down the scissors and looked in the mirror. He’d been successful in shearing away Levi and Harry. In fact, he’d apparently cut away a little of John Watson because all he could see was a stocky stranger with a dusting of cut hair on his shoulders and chest. He smiled. “I look terrible,” John commented to himself. The angst that he’d been swimming in moments ago fell away. He felt lighter.

He ended up borrowing his dad’s electric razor and just buzzing his hair into a military cut. He quite liked it, when it was finished, and after he’d cleaned up the blood on his face he walked downstairs with a straight back to get ice for his still-swelling black eyes.

By the time John changed and left the house, it was 5:54. His mum had disappeared, and wasn’t exactly in a condition to make dinner, so he figured he’d eat at the pub.

John’s dad didn’t notice his hair. He sighed with relief when John walked in, though.

“Just hold down the fort until midnight, then kick out the drunks and go to bed,” he said. “We’ve had customers since noon- apparently it’s been a crappy Tuesday for everyone. I need a drink myself.”

John watched the big man walk wearily out of the bar. He seemed to be in a pretty good mood, but John hoped his mum kept quiet about her job until Harry sobered up or John was around. His dad probably wouldn’t take the news well. John kept an ear on the house next door all night and didn’t hear any loud noises, which was probably good.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock woke up the next morning to a splitting headache and Mycroft’s frowning face.

“Top quality shit, my arse,” he mumbled, partly because the joints he’d smoked last night had been heavily laced with a number of unsavoury additives (and not all fillers either- someone had clearly been strung out when they’d added the hyaluronic acid) and partly to horrify Mycroft.

“The gardener reported to me the moment he found your… drug paraphernalia,” Mycroft said disapprovingly as he used two fingers to pinch a baggy containing the remnants of several joints. “This had best not become a habit, brother dear.”

Sherlock squinted his eyes and scratched one forearm frantically. “Hold… still,” he said dazedly.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Drop the act.”

Sherlock did, with an exasperated eye roll that rivalled his brother’s. “I’ll do as I please, brother darling,” he returned as he fluidly threw back the sheets of his bed and hopped out, ignoring the persistent beating of his brain against his skull.

“Wouldn’t want Mummy hearing about this little escapade,” floated Mycroft’s last words through the doorway.

Alone, Sherlock dropped dramatically back into bed. Jim really had given him a cocktail, and with a groan he pulled a pillow across his eyes to block out the morning sunlight filtering through his blinds. It was a Wednesday morning, and given that he’d already pushed Mycroft, he probably did have to go to school.

Several minutes later, Sherlock worked up enough motivation to roll out of bed a second time and open the doors of his closet, still squeezing his eyes shut against the sun.

“So much unnecessary light,” he grumbled, and closed the closet doors behind him, making it marginally more bearable.

Getting dressed was his ritual, and spite of himself Sherlock enjoyed it that morning. He peeled off the paisley Egyptian cotton pajama bottoms he slept in and tossed them creatively over a chandelier before moving to the first rack.

A colleague at the London branch of the Ontario Provincial Police had once told Sherlock his style choices were alienating his classmates, but of course Sherlock knew that. He just didn’t care. He didn’t dress to impress anyone but himself, and some days the feel of real silk against his pale skin was all that got him through the tedium of the day. Besides, he was pretty sure he was allergic to polyester.

On that particular Wednesday, Sherlock selected an eggplant Armani button-down (barrel cuffs; shirttail hem; split back yoke). He’d really been intending to settle for a Ralph Lauren in cotton poplin, but the day was looking to be particularly trying. In the interest of compromise, he dressed down otherwise, opting for a thoroughly average pair of trousers and last season’s watch.

By midday, Sherlock was regretting his concessions. The day would have been far more tolerable in head-to-toe Armani. Ms. Baptiste was unusually edgy, her fiancé not having returned home until about 3 AM that morning, and even snapped at Sherlock in French for not having completed some humdrum homework assignment on time. Sherlock consoled himself by correcting her grammar mid-lecture, but he didn’t normally detest Ms. Baptiste nearly as much as his other teachers, so the outburst was a disappointment.

By lunch, Sherlock had had enough. It took him seven minutes to find Jim’s locker (a lapse which he attributed to the headache), but once he located it he lay in wait until Jim slouched around the corner.

“I’ve been expecting you, Sherlock,” Jim said in a voice pitched slightly higher than his norm. Sherlock brushed aside the act. Jim wasn’t hard to deduce- resentful rich junkie kids were a stereotype anywhere, and particularly in Sherlock’s neighbourhood (he'd tracked Jim home from school one day, though he’d lost the trail before seeing which exact house Jim entered). Probably gay, which just added to the angst.

“I forgot my lunch,” Sherlock said. “Can I have yours?” Jim smiled wider.

“Did you like yesterday’s? Personally, I thought you might have a hankering for something a bit richer today.”

“Yes, richer will do nicely. But-a little warning- last time the quality wasn’t quite up to par, and you can rest assured that I won’t tolerate that again.”

Jim’s grin broke into a snicker. It would appear that this meeting was Christmas, Thanksgiving and his birthday all rolled into one. “Sherlock Holmes is developing into quite the picky eater, isn’t he?”

“Enough,” Sherlock cut him off, tiring of the game. Jim had wangled a locker in the most isolated hall of the school, and Sherlock had already ascertained that it was out of view of the few video cameras Baker had been able to afford. A code wasn’t critical, and theirs was transparent anyway. “Have you got it?”

“I always keep the fridge stocked for you, Sherlock. Now, there is the question of payment…”

“Of course I’ll pay. Cash. Upfront.” Sherlock hadn’t been sure of his plans when he’d left the house, but he’d brought cash anyway (birthday money).

“Are you sure? I’d be just as happy to accept… credit.” Sherlock was confused until Jim sighed and raked his eyes down Sherlock’s body. Definitely, positively gay. Sherlock’s skin crawled at the thought of Jim’s oily hands.

“Not necessary,” he replied. “I’ll take fifty bucks’ worth.” He’d done his research.

“Do you have a preferred sandwich?”

“Let’s drop the game. If anyone were listening, I think it’d be fairly obvious what we’re doing.”

Jim looked offended. “The game is the best part! Regardless, I’ll make a recommendation.” Without even looking, Jim reached up behind him and pulled a tiny brown paper bag from his locker shelf. Deftly, he then pretended to trip over himself, and Sherlock watched with a mixture of revulsion and clinical appreciation as he slid the bag up Sherlock’s pant leg. Jim had clearly done the move more for aesthetic reasons than for practical ones since the hall was still empty, but Sherlock felt obliged to reciprocate, and slid a fifty dollar note into Jim’s sleeve as he helped him up from the floor.

“You’ve got style, Holmes,” Jim said with appreciation. “The things I could teach you to do…”

The deal done, Sherlock ignored him and walked away, acutely aware of the small bundle brushing against his ankle with each step. It was torture not to open the bag until the end of the day.

The bell rang at 2:30, and by 3:00 Sherlock was slouched in an alley in the Downs. He had gotten a rise out of antagonizing Mycroft the day before, but he knew that this time Jim had given him something much harder than a joint or two of marijuana, so in an effort to avoid taking unnecessary risks he’d hidden himself as far as possible from his brother’s prying eyes.

Over the next twelve days, Sherlock met up with Jim four times, putting a serious dent in his birthday money.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the twelfth day, John walked past Sherlock at 3:11. Junkies littered that alley on a regular basis, and after long enough in the Downs a person didn’t even notice anymore. The junkie might have mumbled something, prompted by the sound of footsteps, but the cracking adolescent voice rang no bells and John didn’t stop. He did, however, buy another knitted jumper from the thrift store on the corner.

Apart from additions to his truly prodigious collection of knitwear, John’s life was normally uneventful. To the casual observer, even the fight and ensuing haircut of two weeks ago, though cathartic, had tangibly changed very little in his routine.

This particular day was different.

It didn’t start out that way- exams were approaching and rugby season was over, so John had been spending all his time studying in his room. The drinking season wasn’t affected by Baker High’s schedule, though, so John was just wrapping up another 6:00-12:00 shift in the pub when it happened.

The catalyst was a mermaid. John had been walking to a table with drinks when it had caught his eye, and at first he didn’t even register why he’d noticed it. He'd delivered the drinks, pocketed a tip, and moved back to the bar before he took a double take.

It was thoroughly tacky, and badly done at that. The scales on its tail were half-heartedly filled in, and the clam shells weren’t even. Worst of all, the mermaid was smirking lewdly, an illogical cigarette clenched between underwater teeth.

John saw lots of tattoos in the pub. They were almost a given in the Downs, and a mermaid was even a comparatively common choice. For that reason, at first John couldn’t explain why this one was giving him pause.

It was a neck tattoo, peeking out over the plaid collar of a large man sitting in Booth 7. He was deep in conversation with two other, shady-looking men, and though the pub was poorly lit at all times John could make out a heavily made up woman draped across Mermaid Man’s lap.

The man seemed to feel eyes on him, because he glanced over at the bar. John quickly averted his stare, but not before he saw something that triggered his memory and explained why he’d noticed the tattoo. It was his beard.

John suddenly remembered Jim, ages ago, describing Ms. Baptiste’s fiancé:

_“Arms like logs, big beard. What looks an awful lot like a prison tattoo on his neck. Big tacky mermaid. He looks like your typical thug.”_

Definitely sounded like the man Jim had described.

John was suddenly overcome with curiosity- thin, ladylike Ms. Baptiste with a giant in cut-off sleeves and a lumberjack beard?- and he sidled closer to the table.

Closer inspection proved useless. John hardly had anything to go on. There were probably lots of mermaid neck tattoos in the Downs, and the woman with a hand on the guy’s knee certainly acted as a strong argument in favour of this not being…

“Peter, be serious,” one of the other thugs said.

John froze. Hadn’t Jim said Ms. Baptiste’s fiancé was called Peter? Peter… Hudson, in fact. For a moment, John was quite impressed with himself for having remembered that detail, but then he realized its implication. There was a woman in his lap!

By this point, John’s nosiness and his affection for Ms. Baptiste left him only one option, and moving over to a dense huddle of other people, he coughed loudly, “Peter Hudson!”

Sure enough, Hudson jumped and turned around, pushing the woman off his lap.

“Shit,” said John, and slid out of the way to resume his place at the bar, looking busy as he scrubbed at a spot on the counter that had been there for at least four years.

Hudson didn’t seem to have located John, but now he looked jumpy. He spoke rapidly with the other men for a moment, then gripped the woman by the wrist and left the restaurant. She teetered on her too-high-to-be-respectable heels but followed him. John checked his watch- it was after 11:00 PM.

Hudson gone, John exhaled. Look where he’d got by prying into other people’s business. Ms. Baptiste’s fiancé was in a crummy bar late at night with a woman who may or may not have been a hooker (she looked pretty familiar). Even if she wasn’t, she was clearly tipsy, and when her hands were all over Hudson he certainly hadn’t complained. John had spent enough time in the Downs to recognize a hookup blatantly waiting to happen, and what he’d just seen was one in spades.

But now that he was in possession of a piece of very personal information, he had to actually do something with it.

“Shit,” John said again. He really had to watch the profanity- it was getting worse.

He then proceeded to very studiously not think about Hudson, Ms. Baptiste, or anything related to cheating until midnight, when he shooed out the remaining bums and locked up the pub.

By 12:30, John was sitting in front of the second-hand Acer Aspire netbook he’d bought off a football buddy last fall with two months’ worth of unreported tips. The thing was a dinosaur, and John suspected he’d been ripped off, but even as it slowly loaded the welcome screen of Ms. Baptiste’s French intranet he felt wide awake. John was not a good secret keeper, and the longer he kept Hudson’s secret the dirtier he felt.

When he finally got onto Axis, the first thing he did was open the chat function to look for someone he trusted. That number had gotten smaller after the Tims incident, but luckily Mike Stamford was online.

**BakerBruin15: Dude, you there? I’ve got a problem and I could use a second opinion.**

John studiously ignored the sixteen page of review Ms. Baptiste had uploaded that afternoon and stared at the chat screen until a response came. Throughout elementary school Mike had been something of a slacker, but his parents had really cracked down lately, so with exams starting next week he claimed he’d turned into a zombie, taking breaks from studying only for food and sleep. John was inclined to believe him, since he was on Axis every time John checked.

Tapping his fingers on the desk, John sighed. Good guy, but a terrible correspondent.

**BakerBruin15: Seriously, I know you’re seeing these messages. Take a second away from the books and tell me what to do.**

**BakerBruin15: I’m pretty sure Baptiste’s fiancé is cheating on her. Do I tell her?**

John waited.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock gaped.

He’d developed the bad habit lately of keeping Axis open while he did other things on the Internet. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was doing it (“Waiting for someone to want to talk to you?” niggled a little voice in the back of his head) but this was the first time since the Emoticon Incident that a classmate had used the program to interact with him. Actually, if he was being honest, this was the first time since the Incident that anyone but Jim had used any medium to interact with him.

He was hardly high at all, and BakerBruin15 had actually had something interesting to say. Not just interesting, but brilliant.

Whoever he was, he was right. Now that it was pointed out, Sherlock saw everything. Baptiste’s harried expressions and short temper (late nights of waiting up); the recent change in perfume (a subconscious attempt to regain attention); new too-expensive necklace (guilt –induced gift). It all added up, and Sherlock hadn’t been the first one to do the math. Could it be possible that Sherlock had an equal?

A month ago he’d have been disgusted at the suggestion, but now it had a certain appeal. Jim was a vapid fool with too much money and too many connections, Mycroft was a pompous fool, his parents were depressingly normal… but someone at his school was brilliant.

Sherlock’s mind raced through his classmates. The username’s sports reference meant his genius was athletic. That ruled out Stan Waterhouse. Could it be Tom Culane? He’d always reminded Sherlock a bit of himself, though that might just be a result of his excellent hair. Morgan Hall? He supposed it could be a girl- Maria White? Penny van Dale?

Sherlock’s heart was beating almost as fast as it had in the alley that afternoon. His hands were trembling as he held them over the keyboard, poised to ask twelve questions all at once.

His brain whirring, Sherlock didn’t notice how long he spent frozen in that position until his computer beeped disappointedly and the green dot next to BakerBruin15’s name went grey.

Sherlock went to bed then, not even remotely tired but unable to concentrate on anything else.

He dreamed that he had a brother (not Mycroft, a real brother) and woke achingly sober.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

m1k3s7886u9jk005 never replied to John’s Axis messages, and when John asked Mike Stamford about it the next morning, he hemmed and hawed and admitted that he’d never really set up an account. John figured it must have been a spambot that hacked its way into the program- after all, what real person makes a username like that if it’s not meant to spell out their name?- and stopped thinking about the interaction.

John used Axis for ten more days, and each time the spambot was online. After his French exam, he never used the account again.

It took him three days, but John eventually got up the nerve to tell Ms. Baptiste about what he’d seen. After the first blow, she didn’t look that surprised, and she thanked him for the news. Then she had a beautiful July wedding in Toronto.

That summer, John finally met a couple of other kids from the Downs and took up boxing in the alley. He broke his nose twice.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock did not pursue his investigation into BakerBruin15’s identity. He told himself it was just a coincidence, and that the mystery genius was probably another average teenage airhead who had happened upon a piece of gossip. The weekend after exams, Mycroft said cryptically, “Disappointment is a symptom of unreasonable expectations, brother dear.” Sherlock had no idea what he was talking about.

Of course, Sherlock followed Ms. Baptiste and Peter Hudson to Toronto and uncovered Hudson’s drug ring. When they got back from their honeymoon, Mr. Hudson was arrested for a double murder.

When Mycroft found out about the crystal meth, he became truly insufferable and Sherlock stayed with Mrs. Hudson to clean up a bit. As soon as he moved back to the Holmes estate in mid-August, he relapsed.


End file.
